It was no surprise to me in the England vs. Ghana football match that this was certainly not going to be a pushover. The Ghana team were superb in their defence and whenever an England player seemed as though they were about to be in a position to shoot for goal, they immediately seem to be surrounded by 4-5 Ghanian shirts. So the England team found that there was literally ‘no way through’ and the traditional tactics of a slow patient buildup remained just that – a buildup with no finish. The commentators on the match were practically screaming at the English team to play ‘through’ the Ghanaians i.e. run at opponents with the ball. But this can be dangerous because if you lose the ball, a Ghanian opponent can make a quick breakaway to score a goal at the other end of the pitch. The English substitutes did make a little difference and the last ten minutes of play, England attacked quite well and nearly scored but it was a case of too little and too late. Looking at domestic politics, the ‘coronation’ of Andy Burnham looks all but certain but before everyone gets carried away on a wave of emotion, the economic problems surrounding the government severely limit the locus of action of even an incoming Prime Minister. If we are to look at problems one by one, the most prominent is the under funding of our defence budget but in the very simplest of terms, where is the money to come from? The answer may lie in some imaginative new funding streams such as special ‘Defence Bonds’ as in the second world war but all of this has to be thought through. The Conservative answer is to ‘cut the welfare bill’ and devote the released funds to defence but this is not as easy as it sounds. It is true that that there is a huge problem of NEETS (Not in Education, Employment or Training) There are approximately 1.01 million young people (aged 16 to 24) in the UK who are not in education, employment, or training (NEET). This figure equates to 13.5% of all young people in this age group but about 60% of this figure are people who are disabled or otherwise unfit for work. For the remainder, there probably needs to be a joint policy involving government and employers but hard-pressed employers will not do this for nothing and will require some economic incentives – and this of course, costs and does not save money. The traditional Labour answer to problems is to borrow the money but here we are at the mercy of the bond markets or, as it is popularly known. ‘the kindness of strangers’ In other words if foreign investors are not convinced of the probity of UK politics, then they will simply not lend the money to us. At the risk of a very simple economic analysis if in times gone past one approached a bank manager for a loan to buy a car without which it was impossible to get to work, the bank manager might give one a sympathetic reply. But if you wanted to buy a car simply as an enjoyable consumption good, then the same bank manager would probably refuse a loan. I am aware that one should not treat Government economic activity as though it was a huge domestic household but I think it is often not appreciated on the left of politics that that they may not be people in the world who wish to lend to you unless the price in interest payments is extraordinarily high. The total amount the government owes is called the national debt. It is currently about £2.9 trillion. That is almost as much as the value of all the goods and services produced in the UK in a year, known as the gross domestic product, or GDP. The current level is more than double that seen from the 1980s through to the financial crisis of 2008. The combination of the financial crash and the Covid pandemic pushed the UK’s debt up. But, in relation to the size of the economy, UK debt figures are still low compared with much of the last century. They are also less than the equivalent figures for some other leading economies. Even so, just paying the interest on this huge debt costs the economy over 8% of total government expenditure so just borrowing more money may not be the answer. In the meanwhile, the NHS always seems to be desperately short of cash and most of our public services have been starved of investment for decades now so who would want to be in charge of a government faced with al of these unpalatable choices. The traditional answer is ‘economic growth’ but for decades now the UK economy has seemed to grow if anything by the most miniscule amounts and hence the tax take does not increase by very much. One answer may lie in innovative new forms of taxation. I personally would put a £1 levy on every parcel or package delivered to households in the UK and this would rase A £1 levy on all parcels and packages in the UK would raise between £4.2 billion and £5 billion annually. By way of comparison, increasing the basic rate of income tax by 1p raises approximately £6.9 billion a year.
I went shopping yesterday morning and the supermarket was very crowded but perhaps this is because it was so cool inside – I wonder whether some people had discerned this and so had gone shopping to help to draw the sting of what is proving to be the hottest June day on record. Yesterday was officially the hottest ever June day, breaking the 1976 record. A temperature of 35.7C has been recorded in Charlwood, Surrey, according to the Met Office. This year marks half a century since the 1976 heatwave: a summer when people put foil over windows to keep out the sun and were forced to use standpipes in the street as water supplies ran short. The UK’s all-time high is 40.3C, recorded in July 2022. I may meet my American friend in the park later on in the evening if we both need feel the need for a bit of fresh air. We have about one more day of really hot weather to negotiate and then things might break down with multiple thunderstorms towards the end of the week. I think a lot of people would really welcome a good thunderstorm and a downpour to help to clear the air after recent days.